What Motivates Doctors

Physician pay accounts for about 20% of total health-care spending, and in many specialties it has increased much faster than inflation in recent years.

Some critics say that’s because most doctors get paid for every service they perform, which creates an incentive to order unnecessary tests and hospitalize people who don’t need it.

That critique is the basis for a push to tie physician pay to performance, evaluating doctors on how well they follow procedures for patient care and how well they score on patient satisfaction surveys, among other things.